Tag Archives: author du jour

“The New Old Me” by Meredith Maran (Blue Rider Press, pp 302, $27.00) A great undiscovered jewel, and from what I infer, a book that deserves to get into every single book club in the nation, and beyond. My enthusiasm is perhaps excessive. There comes a time when a book appears and has valuable lessons […]

“The Telomere Effect: a Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer,” by Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD and Elissa Epel, PhD (Grand Central Publishing, pp 399, $28.00) Whoever came up with the subtitle for this fascinating book did an excellent job creating a strong hook. Who indeed would not want to live longer? Contrary to what you […]

“World War I and America: Told by the American Who Lived It,” edited by A. Scott Berg (Library of America, pp 896, $40.00) Besides the inviting silky quality of the paper, this volume from the Library of America offers an impressive collection of articles, essays, personal stories, and declassified documents from WWI, from both participants […]

March 2017. Only six weeks have elapsed since Trump took power, and what a contrast with the previous administration. The country seems to have been seized by the invisible hand of hysteria and neurosis. In recent memory, never a concentration of angry and vocal citizens has been so strident and quick to gather. In this […]

“The Wines of My Life, ” by Eric Beaumard (Abrams pp 280, $45.00) “The Wines of My Life” is a very important book for two reasons. First it was written by, perhaps, the most influential sommelier in the world, Eric Beaumard, who from humble origins and a major road accident that left him physically impaired […]

“The One Man” by Andrew Gross (Minotaur Books, pp 418, $26.99) “The One Man” marks a radical departure for Andrew Gross. His past novels (nine and counting) were all in the pure thriller genre, a craft he learned straight from the Lord himself, James Patterson, with whom he co-authored several novels. “The One Man” however […]

“Heads,” by Jesse Jarnow (Da Capo Press, pp 468, $27.99) If you are a fan of books dealing with the history of salt, timber or something more exotic like sex, you will delight in “Heads,” a book about psychedelics. Though the term has now gained multiple definitions, notably in relation to music and culture, the […]

“Forty Autumns: a Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall,” by Nina Willner (William Morrow, pp 397, $27.99) The title spells it all. “Forty Autumns,” is about survival on both sides of the Berlin Wall. If you know the history of the Cold War, you will quickly infer that […]

“Where Memory Leads” by Saul Friedländer. (Other Press, pp 284, $24.95) If you remember the Pulitzer Prize winning book, “The Years of Extermination,” you will know at once that this review refers to Saul Friedländer. If you also know that he spent sixteen years writing his magnum opus, you could claim that he spent 80 […]

“The Natural Way of Things,” by Charlotte Wood (Europa Editions, pp 233, $17.00) Though not her first novel, “The Natural Way of Things” is Charlotte Wood’s first print in the States. Better late than never, and it is wholly deserved. It is an intriguing book to come out at the time of perhaps the strangest […]